A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes: Alright,so I've been "with" my lover for 3 1/2 years. We were boyfriend and girlfriend for 2 1/2 years and we've been on a break for the past year. Although it kinda can't be called a break because we never really stopped seeing each other. On average we would spend 4-5 days a week with each other, and the nights that I didn't spend at his house, were mostly due to the fact that I had night classes that I attended. Let me just say that after 2 years he asked me to move in with him and I declined. Not because I didn't love him, but because I lived with my previous boyfriend and when we broke up my life was in shambles. Also because my school was quite far away from where he lives and classes got out fairly late, 10:00pm. He wouldn't admit it at the time but he was very hurt by this. He then started to hang out with his friends much much more, and started drinking a lot more also. After a few months of this I started to get frustrated, always trying to get him to do more productive things with me but when I was there we ended up just staying in his house and watching movies or playing video games. He then would invite me over and after we would have a couple drinks he would say he had to go to the bathroom and it ended up he left me at his house to go to parties. After a couple of these Houdini acts I confronted him about why he leaves me there and he said it was because he didn't want to have to worry about me. He would always get very jealous over any guy I had a conversation with whenever we went out together, he's very insecure. He told me that I was the only girl he's ever gotten jealous with. Well, we had a blow-up over the confrontation and he said he thought we should take a break. One of the reasons for the break he claimed was the fact that I didn't move in with him. He said that was his way of taking the relationship to the next level. I told him I didn't know he felt so strongly about it and that I would gladly move in with him (we pretty much lived together anyways minus my furniture.) He said it was too late I had my chance and I blew it (I believe it was alcohol speaking). He is also very very stubborn. Well, The break never truly happened, we still saw each other all the time, we were still intimate and we told each other I love you. Soon after "the break", he got a DUI and was housebound, I stuck by his side through everything, trying to cheer him up when he was depressed about it. Well he recently got another DUI and he's feeling really down on himself again. He hadn't touched a drink in 2 months after his second DUI until last week. We had a nice Valentine's Day and he was telling me he loved me up until a fight we had the other night about him never really going out anywhere with me and spending all his extra funds going out with the boys. I told him it made me feel excluded. Granted neither of us has access to a vehicle right now but there is public transportaion nearby. Now he is saying that he needs to do his own thing, and that he doesn't love me anymore. I may be naive but I think he's depressed. How can someone stop loving someone else over night? Just as recently as last week when I walked in the door coming "home" from work he was running up to me kissing me and hugging me, saying "I missed you so much cuddlebug!" Then when he noticed I was shivering he said "lets get you upstairs into your comfy pajamas and we'll cuddle under the covers and warm your little tootsies!" He even brought out the hairdryer to warm my frozen toes under the blanket. Now all of a sudden he needs a break? Can he just not withstand a confrontation? Or do you think the love for me is really gone for him? I'm completely heartbroken over this I love him with all my heart and soul and I feel like I'm getting some serious mixed signals. When I tried to ask him questions about it he was rather cold and he said "I want to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and you are not my girlfriend but your acting like one by complaining about me when I want to do my own thing." He's my best friend in the world, and he says that he still wants to be best friends, but our last break of trying to be just friends, didn't really last long at all because we couldn't keep our hands off each other! It actually brought a lot of our passion for each other back into our lives. He said his life is stagnant and that he needs to do something with it. The majority of his friends are alcoholics/addicts and he is trying to recover from this but still spends a few nights a week at the bar with them although he has been drinking just plain red bull. I fear the more he hangs out with them, especially at the bars, the more apt he is to being sucked back into that lifestyle. I love him too much to see him be wrecked by all that. All in all he is the most incredible person I've ever met.Wow, I'm really sorry for the length of this. I guess I had much more than I thought I had to say. It felt great to get it all out. Please I need some feedback! Should I hold on to hope that eventually we will be together again? Or should I try to heal and move on?Help!
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 February 2009): I think he sounds like a complete loser, his life sounds out of control and all he is motivated to do is to hang out with his friends and drink and he doesn't want the responsibility of a relationship, hence you are not my girlfriend....his pattern seems to be one of irresponsibility, hence the not learning his lesson after the first DUI, and now a second one.....at least he isn't driving any more?
He is in no position to be your boyfriend or any one else, he has told you he doesn't think of you as his girlfriend, so what you have here is a psuedo relationship, a friendship, but why would you want to remain friends with a guy when you have deeper feelings for him? You are young by my standards and you are in school learning a trade or earning a career path. You do not need this guy holding you back and if you would like to get to your happily ever after, with a husband and a couple of kids, then you are literally wasting your own love life by spending your time with him.
He may be depressed, but it is not your responsibility to save him. He has an alchohol problem which has impacted his life in a negative way, it is not your responsibility to save him, it is his, and he doesn't seem to really want to change otherwise he would stay out of the bars and make new friends or at the very least drop the old ones.
The reason he is with you is that no one else would put up with him, he knows he can't have a girlfriend, he has nothing to offer any one, but he needs you, he is dependent on you for comfort and support, but don't you deserve someone who can do the same for you and offer you love and a real relationship? Sure you do.
I can tell that nothing any one says here will convince you to let him go and move on with your life, because you have been in a holding pattern for more than a year. Start focusing on you, stop focusing on the man. What do you want? What do you need to be happy? Is this the right man for you? What do you want to see happen to your life? What are your goals for the future? Does this guy even have a future, and if so does he talk about it with you in it? Or does he continue to say he wants to do what he wants to do without considering your feelings about it?
That is your answer.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 February 2009): It seems like there's a lot going on with you guys. But sometimes, and I think it'll suck to hear it, but sometimes relationships just carry on by sheer momentum and nothing else. There isn't enough impetus to end things, but the relationship has lost it's spark and is kind of just sputtering along because nobody wants to end it.
When drugs or alcohol are involved, everything is so much more difficult. From the sounds of it, this guy IS depressed and having trouble with his life. Maybe his instincts to let you go, or have a break, are right. Maybe what he needs is to sort himself out once and for all, clear his head etc. And a relationship formed during a drinking/drug problem sometimes doesn't hold up in the same way when that problem is removed. Sometimes, the relationship can even hold you back. You hinted at that with his friends.
Anyway, I can't know what's in his mind, and neither can you if he keeps giving you mixed signals. As hard as it will be, I think you need to step back form this one. You are not happy, he is not happy. You both need time out to yourselves to decide what you need and whether the relationship is worth it. With that perspective, you can decide whether to move on or not. Make a clean break. If you don't like his drinking, and neither of you are willing to compromise, that's a red flag. If he is literally running away from you and telling you he doesn't love you, that's a red flag. If he has drinking and drug problems, red flag.
My experience is that men usually tell you exactly what they mean. I think this guy needs some time alone to sort himself out and you need to stop clinging on in the hopes that he will get better.
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